Seasonal Decay
by Stephane Richer
Summary: There's something about this kind of autumn that always brings Tatsuya down, leaves him moping around and bleary-eyed.


Seasonal Decay

Disclaimer: Don't own.

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The sun is blazing in the distance, half-hidden behind a shiny new high-rise with floor-to-ceiling windows that will look decrepit in just a few years, before every apartment is sold to a nouveau-riche entrepreneur or some trust-fund baby with more money than sense. These things seem to go through development hell, as Alex will walk past the old buildings on her way to the park for years, and then they'll get torn down, and then remain an empty lot with construction signs for years until she forgets there was ever a building there. And then she goes away for a week and comes back and there's this giant high-rise. It's enough to make her doubt her sanity and her vision, sometimes (although her vision's always been shaky, so perhaps that is the culprit). It's a crisp November day, although November here isn't like November in other places farther away from the equator. There's something about this kind of autumn that always brings Tatsuya down, leaves him moping around and bleary-eyed, and sometimes he doesn't notice his shots missing in practice. She's heard of Seasonal Affective Disorder, of course, but the science of that is all to do with having less light and although the days are shorter they're still pretty sunny and warm and they could be a lot longer.

It's probably because he misses Japan. Japanese winters, from what Alex knows of them, are lovely. Taiga once told her about how they sucked because he had to stay inside and couldn't go out and run around with his friends, and here there was sun and basketball! But the thought of snowy mountains and cities, which even Taiga admitted were kind of cool, intrigued her. And once she went there, saw the full-on winter...it was really something else, the wind and cold and grey and people struggling against it. Tatsuya must miss that (Alex would miss Los Angeles winters if she spent too much time in a different climate).

The sun is fading fast, though, and it's almost time for dinner, so she gets up from the cheap deck chair and opens the sliding door to go back into the living room. Tatsuya is asleep on the couch, breathing deeply but not completely at ease. Well, dinner can wait. Alex walks over to the couch and slips in beside him, pressing a soft kiss onto his neck. He sighs and shifts slightly, unconsciously giving her more room. She's actually more tired than she'd thought, and being next to Tatsuya with the light through the French doors growing dimmer, she soon falls asleep.

She wakes up to the smell of frying meat. Somehow, Tatsuya managed to move her into a more comfortable spot and take off her glasses (at least, she's assuming that's what happened) but now she doesn't know where her glasses are and it's too hard to focus her eyes, although all the lamps are on. She slaps the edge of the coffee table, finally hitting the familiar metal frames, and picks them up and puts them on. Much better. She gets up and walks to the kitchen, where Tatsuya is frying cheese steaks. They look tender and juicy and are almost done, and he looks much less troubled than before. Perhaps cooking keeps his mind off of whatever is troubling him.

"I was going to wake you up when dinner was ready," he says without turning around.

She smiles (can he tell she's smiling? Probably). "Looks good."

It is good, the fried meat and onions and cheese on fresh Portuguese rolls from the local organic market done just right and totally filling. After dinner, they return to the couch, drape themselves over one another again. The Clippers are on TV, in a close game with the Spurs, but neither of them is paying all that much attention. They're preoccupied with their own thoughts and with each other more than anything else right now.

"Tatsuya?"

"Hmm?" He's holding her hand in his, going over every detail of her chipped nails with his own calloused fingertips, but takes his eyes off of them and looks up intensely into her eyes.

"Are you…unhappy here?" She's not quite sure how to adequately phrase this. He's pretty good at deciphering her vague speech, so perhaps he'll understand this?

He squints and tilts his head a fraction of an inch, but then understanding lights up his visible eye. "No. I miss Japan sometimes, but this is my home."

It's true from a pure quantity-of-time viewpoint. He spent his very early childhood, two years of high school, and a few vacations in various parts of Japan, but the rest of his life has been here, in the US, in Los Angeles. Still, when you spend the first years of your life someplace, it ought to affect you. Alex can remember the tiny apartment she lived in with her parents when she was very young—but the memories are fleeting and she's not quite sure what she remembers and what her parents have told her that she thinks she actually remembers. And Tatsuya is not her. Alex really needs to stop projecting herself onto other people; she knows that.

She's not quite sure what to say next, because she was so sure that must have been it. And this isn't one of those times he's trying to lie to make her feel better (she sees those from the get-go and goes along with them most of the time because she appreciates his efforts). So what could it be? Before she gets a chance to ask, he answers.

"It's not really fall, you know? I'm waiting for winter, but I know it won't come, and there's nothing I can do."

This agitation, anticipation of a lie—he's like this way in basketball, too, he can spot the fakes easily, has such sharp eyes, fools everyone else with his own false promises of things that are never to come. Of course this is the type of thing he can't stand.

The commercial for a pizza joint is loud and the voice of the actor is grating. She presses the power button on the remote; the screen turns black. This game is just another one of more than eighty, and probably ultimately meaningless in the scheme of things.

He grabs her around the waist and places her in his lap, holding her tightly against him. He's quite warm, a sensation that's pleasant even tonight, when it still hasn't cooled off.


End file.
